The Frog Who Croaked

Platypus Police Squad #1

by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

From the Files of the Platypus Police Squad

Case #1138 Detectives of record: Rick Zengo and Corey O'Malley

Case brief: A local schoolteacher is missing, and the only thing fishier than the circumstances surrounding his disappearance is the smell coming from the bag he left behind. All clues point to billionaire businessman Frank Pandini Jr.--but why would Pandini get his paws into the illegal fish trade?

Genres: Mystery, Middle Grade, Humor, Childrens, Fiction, Animals, Chapter Books

240 pages, Hardcover

First published May 7, 2013

About the author

Jarrett J. Krosoczka, known since boyhood as "JJK," is the New York Times bestselling author/illustrator behind more than forty books for young readers, including his wildly popular Lunch Lady graphic novels, select volumes of the Star Wars™: Jedi Academy series, and Hey, Kiddo, which was a National Book Award Finalist. Krosoczka creates books with humor, heart, and deep respect for his young readers—qualities that have made his titles perennial favorites on the bookshelves of homes, libraries, and bookstores over the past twenty years.

In addition to his work in print, Krosoczka produced, directed, and performed in the full-cast audiobook adaptations of his graphic novels. The Hey, Kidoo audiobook garnered both Audie and Odyssey Awards for excellence in audiobook production. The Lunch Lady audiobook cast is led by Kate Flannery (The Office) and is rounded out by famed audiobook narrators and real kid actors! Krosoczka has been a guest on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, has been profiled in The New York Times, was featured on Good Morning America, and has delivered three TED Talks, which have accrued millions of views online. Krosoczka has garnered millions of more views online via the tutorials he has produced for YouTube and TikTok. As well as working on his books' film and television adaptions, Krosoczka has also written for The Snoopy Show (Apple TV+) and served as a consultant for Creative Galaxy (Prime Video), and appeared in live segments for the show.

Realizing that his books can inspire young readers beyond the page, Krosoczka founded School Lunch Hero Day, a national campaign celebrating school lunch staff. A consummate advocate for arts education, Krosoczka also established the Joseph and Shirley Krosoczka Memorial Youth Scholarships, which fund art classes for underprivileged children in his hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts.

Krosoczka lives in western Massachusetts with his spouse, their three children, pugs Ralph and Frank, and a French bulldog named Bella Carmella.

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

The target audience for this book is definitely middle grade/ upper Elementary. As and adult reader, it really wasn't a bad mystery. I think it's a great introduction to mysteries for young or young-at-heart readers. If you are a teacher or children's librarian, there's a lot of potential for activities you could plan with this book. Very fun!

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story about Zengo and O'Malley, two platypus cops working in Kalamazoo. A teacher disappears and the cops suspect Frank Pandini Jr, whose father was a known criminal. But Frank has turned over a new leaf and is all about supporting the community to make up for his father. One old time cop and one rookie cop need to solve the case of the missing teacher and also find out who is selling fake fish at the school.

The similarities to drugs in schools is obvious here in this story but told in a manner that children might better relate to.

I enjoyed the book and found that there was a bit of meaning and a good enough mystery to keep me interested. You could also see the rookie cop begin to develop some insights and control over his actions. Well done to the author. A bit young for adults but I can see that kids might be intrigued therefore a 4 rating.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The audiobook is read by the wonderful Johnny Heller which adds three stars automatically. (When my life gets made into an audiobook, I hope Johnny Heller narrates my childhood and Morgan Freeman my attempt at being a grown-up. I love their voices. ) He is great at an array of voices for the colorful characters. One interesting audio fact is that he mispronounces Krosoczka in the introduction-but that is forgiven.

This is a fun police procedural for kids. The cops are platypuses, and there is some rotten fish stinking up Kalamazoo City, and a teacher has gone missing. Lunch Lady fans will enjoy the zany mystery and the colorful characters. I thought this one was a lot of fun and look forward to more from the PPS. It will be a hit with gr. 3-5

[Elizabeth Tyree · Rating 3 out of 5]

a cute fun middle grade mystery

[Dena McMurdie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book out loud to my kids. We read a couple of chapters each night, and my oldest (6) always begged for more. She even has a PPS poster above her bed.

In truth, I expected this book to be funny. Call me crazy, but when you stick a weird looking animal into a police uniform and arm him with a boomerang, I expect a few jokes along the way. The book wasn't funny—at least, not in a laugh out loud kind of way. I was disappointed with that at first, but that feeling soon ebbed away. It was a legitimate detective mystery for kids! It was like a Law and Order episode starring platypuses and pandas. It was a real police drama, complete with a missing professor, an illegal fish selling scandal, and some intense chase-down-the-bad-guy scenes. When we got to the last 50 pages or so, my kids wouldn't let me stop reading even though it was WAY past their bedtime. So we finished it off, then analyzed all the characters and discussed who did what and who the bad guy really was and what might happen in book 2.

So as you can see, it's not a bad thing that the book wasn't funny. My kids loved it, I liked it, and we all plan on diving into the second book tomorrow.

On a side note, the author also illustrated oodles of black and white pictures for the interior. His artwork is fantastic and gives the book a little something extra.


Content: Clean

My blog: Batch of Books

[Bethe · Rating 3 out of 5]

2014-15 Texas bluebonnet Award nominee. Fans of Lunch Lady graphic novel will be excited to see Krosoczka's entry into MG fiction, the illustrations will entice and engage other readers with its kid appeal, which earns the book a third star. I am not sure if the intended audience will understand the nod to film noir/buddy cop movies/genre, as adult platypus main characters, it really doesn't work for me, perhaps if they were kid platypuses solving the same mystery? Page 195 the text says he was drinking coffee, but the illustration shows a can of cola. I did learn a new word: monotreme, which I wasn't sure was a real word or a derogatory name some characters were using. There is a big set up for the next book, which was intriguing.

[Angie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really had high hopes for this book. It seemed like a neat buddy comedy, crime drama, mystery for middle grades. But there was too much about it that didn't make any sense to me. Is Zengo a kid or an adult? Because even though it's his first day as a police officer, he's impulsive and immature. The characters weren't developed, so I was just beat over the head with the details about them. If there's a reader who doesn't instantly understand that Pandini's actions are suspicious, I would be shocked. Maybe ten year olds will feel differently about this book and adore it. I hope so.

[Jonathan Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book because it has friendship and action and also talking animals. It also has mystery and some action. My favorite part of the book is when they stopped the bad guy by throwing a boomerang at his feet and he fell over. I recommend reading this book if you like solving mysteries and some action.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only thing that would make this book better would be if a song by The Who played when the reader turned to the title page.

[The Erudite Gryffinclaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has Platypuses on the Police force, instead of using guns like how police officers do in regular crime novels, these police officers use boomerangs.

In the city of Kalamazoo, there has been an increase in synthetic fish flooding into the city, and animals have gotten sick off of bad synthetic fish. There is also a Panda by the name of Frank Pandini Jr, he owns Pandini enterprises and according to one of the main characters Rick Zengo, it seems like Pandini is trying to take over the town, because there is literally a Pandini sign on every corner and at every renovation project in the city.


The main characters, Zengo and O'Mally are paired together for the case, and their relationship is rocky at best for about half of the book.

I would recommend this book for people who liked the Disney movie Zootopia. I also reccomend the book for people who are wanting a fictional story about working together, even though you don't like the person from the beginning, without the book feeling like it's talking down to you.

[Jacki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A teacher has gone missing in what is believed to be an illegal fish trade gone bad. Zengo is a new detective with the Platypus Police Squad, and he and his veteran partner O’Malley are assigned to the case. O’Malley’s caution and Zengo’s brash actions do not mix all the time, which makes for an interesting partnership. As Zengo keeps messing up and gets the pair kicked off the case, they continue to search, ultimately finding the missing teacher and solving the illegal fish trade at the high school (or so they think).

This was a fun and funny read. I appreciated the black and white images that made this feel more like a true detective/mystery story. Zengo and O’Malley’s personalities were consistent, but at times got a little too repetitive and predictable. I also really like the ending with Pandini Jr. foreshadowing that the illegal fish trade would continue…it makes me want to keep reading the series to find out if he ever gets caught.

[Kest Schwartzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Setting aside the obviously problematic issue of a police force made entirely of one species that is meant to protect a city made up of myriad species (and, by ignoring the all platypus police squad, we smoothly steer clear of the parallels between that and our current issues with the real live police force) there is still the unfortunate writing.

Look. Slapstick is HARD. Buster Keaton wasn't a haphazard fool, he was a brilliant actor and choreographer. Slapstick in writing is even HARDER. Slapstick works because it looks like an accident, but making it work is not an accident. This author clearly thinks that if he keeps tripping, he'll just accidentally land in good slapstick, but really he's just falling down a lot and none of it is funny.

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really fun! It definitely had that "Dragnet" quality to it - for those of us who remember - and yet was fully accessible for the younger audience. The main character Zengo, is wonderful for kids to read about because he thinks he's ready for everything coming his way and doesn't need to listen as closely to his experienced partner. But after a few mishaps, that he learns from, he understands that it takes both new ideas and experience to really make his team work the best. I love the settings listed at the top of each chapter, where and when. It really makes you feel like you are experiencing this adventure with them. The ending is especially fun and keeps you thinking.

[M. Lauritano · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to begin this review by saying that I am a huge fan of Jarret Krosoczka. As an author/illustrator, I really aspire to the kind of career he has built. The choice of characters that he shines the spotlight on, really seem to come from a genuine place of love. He really seems to care about community and getting children to live book-filled, creative lives. He is awesome. I wish that I felt the same way about this book.

The Frog Who Croaked launches the middle grade Platypus Police Squad series. Kalamazoo City is a bustling, multi-species filled metropolis with a criminal history. Our protagonists are hot-headed rookie Rick Zengo and tired but reliable veteran Corey O'Malley; platypus detectives investigating an illegal synthetic fish trade (yes, you read that correctly) and a missing persons case. The book is filled with the expected stumbles and buddy cop friction along the way to a small victory and a pretty well-executed twist. Observing the book as a bare bones concept, it is not a bad idea. It really sounds like it could be fun. What went wrong? Unfortunately, a whole lot.

To begin with, I was not sold on this animal populated world. Beyond the idea that one would not expect a platypus to be a cop or that a panda may or may not be a crime boss (he is) and a couple animal related puns, it does not hold together. There have been plenty of stories that use the animals-as-people premise and it is hard to say why some work and some do not. Plenty of cartoons present situations like this that the audience rarely questions. Redwall is a series that I would point to as a world in which these multi-species communities feel quite natural, perhaps because of the fantastical/historically-informed setting. I have yet to see Zootopia, but from what I hear, although there is a modern setting, the animal concept is really embraced and meaningfully explored as a metaphor. PPS fails to work in either regard. Instead, I found myself asking strange questions like: how come the police force is almost exclusively made up of platypuses? Why is it that fish are not sentient? What are the hotdogs in this world made out of?

Maybe younger readers will not ask these kinds of questions. But that brings me to my next point: what was the target age group for this book? Something about the inclusion of the animal characters makes it feel young. But the plot moves more slowly than it should for a young reader. And while I really like the idea of a genre-informed detective story for children (I have one of my own), the attempt at kid-friendly adult protagonists does not work in the way that a well-written child character could. There are several elements that try to straddle the gap between older and younger readers. Zengo, awkwardly, lives with his parents and breakfasts on sugary cereal and hot cocoa in lieu of coffee. Despite this, O'Malley's children look up to his rookie partner in a way that feels realistic, if not indulging a bit much in an adult perspective. High school pep rallies happen at the city's most exclusive club (?) where root beer floats are served instead of cocktails. Why not invent a drink name, like Pandatini or Kalamazoo Sour, and leave out whether it has alcohol or not? Maybe this is a silly question from someone who grew up in a small town, but how many high school students regularly go clubbing anyway? Then there is the light inclusion of some meditation on social inequality, but sadly it reads as if Zengo is privileged and judgmental underneath a veneer of sympathy. I know that kids often read aspirationally about characters slightly older than them, but the wide mix of ages written, plus the tendency to think less about age when the characters are all animals--like a platypus, it just does not fly.

Finally, as a detective story, it lacks a sense of mystery or danger. The plot and writing really drag this book out. It may be unfair to compare PPS to Krosoczka's Lunch Lady comics, but the contrast between them really shows how he is much more of a visual storyteller than a verbal one. There are a couple scenes in The Frog Who Croaked with the kind of action he uses throughout in his comics and they are a lot of fun. But we have to wade through straightforward, uninventive cop show tropes and redundant character interactions to get to the delightful boomerang slinging chases. However the plot rolls out, the biggest storytelling problem is the concept of illegal synthetic fish. There is no comparable real-world substance or situation, so it really kept me from getting immersed in the book. The word 'synthetic' might suggest synthetic marijuana, but this illegal fish is just food; a lesser quality food that makes people ill and can sometimes be immediately identified while other times needs a forensics team. It seems as if there are plenty of other things to eat in Kalamazoo City besides the expensive non-synthetic fish, so why would anyone sell something that would make their paying customers report them to the police? Maybe the following books are free of these kinds of confusing concepts, but I doubt I will be reading them anytime soon.

I love a good detective story and I think kids can too. I wish Platypus Police Squad had been made as a comic, where the wackiness might have felt more at home in a cartoon universe and panelled action sequences really carried the plot forward. Here's hoping Krosoczka returns to comics and picture books. Or maybe he can just get a better editor for his middle grade ambitions.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

In elementary school, we had an author visit every year. In third grade, Jarrett J. Krosoczka was the author and we always had the option to buy the books and have the person sign them. I pre-ordered the series and read them all in a month. When I read these books I was super focused because then I didn't know it but a few years later my favorite genre would be crime books because I like solving mysteries. I also get annoyed when I see this book because I had to do a super annoying book project on it.

[Brenda Wharton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book #1 in the series
cute book, but some parts seemed over my 4th graders head

Detecitve O'Malley and Zengo work to defend Kalamazoo City from a group who is selling imitation fish. Frank Pandini Jr, the son of crime boss, Frank Pandini Sr... swears he isn't like his dad and is putting lots of money into fixing up the town. is he covering up something? is he involved in the illegal fish trade/selling?

[Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The frog who croaked, i was walking through the library and i saw this and i was like huh i wonder if this would actually be good? so started reading and i don't really know if it is considered a kids book. but after a few pages i started to like it it just had story. the characters are funny and intricate and since its animals its even funnier. The story on this book is good to i mean no spoilers but you will just have to read it yourself to see how good it is. now sometimes you can get a little bored with the book in my opinion

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

My 10 year old son picked this as our new family read aloud before bed each night. He loved Lunch Lady so he wanted to try more by the author. Both boys lived it and are really getting into mysteries now. Just picked up book 2 in the series.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved that the narrator made them all NYC accents, made the characters funnier. The story dragged a bit and took awhile for my son to get into it, but overall enjoyed it. I love that they use boomerangs instead of guns, and love to drink root beer floats. Recommended for ages 7-11, 3-1/2 stars.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love the action and the way it solved the mysteries

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a mysterious mystery. I kept guessing til the very end.

[Nick Manning · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really liked this book because it was a mystery book. They had to figure out the crime.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it, especially on audio.

[Arjun K! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing just amazing......

[Malia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Platypus police guffaw that I found was hilarious.The Frog Who Croaked is the first audio in a series.

[Adam and Leo · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I liked the story but there’s no humor in it. I like books to be a little funny at some points. I think the author could do a little better writing this book. The End

[Carson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think it was great but it had a cliffhanger so i have to buy the rest of the books

[Linus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read it before so I knew the mystery, but it was still good.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

DescriptionPlatypus Police Squad: The Frog Who Croaked is the first in a series of zany, action-packed middle grade mysteries featuring platypus police detectives Rick Zengo and Corey O’Malley.

[Mal]

no further interest in series